I believe I first learned about Festool by seeing Tommy use them on This Old House and Ask This Old House. There have been some Festool giveaways like the CXS drill for This Old House Insiders a couple times already.

Well Tommy has been using their products for years...that is how I learned of the brand.

I watched only a few this old house episodes but a lot of the new Yankee workshop episodes and don't recall seeing any Festool. I really like Norm way to do woodworking and hope this partnership will add to my arsenal of how to

I didn't mean to sound condescending toward Norm and the New Yankee Workshop. I hope it did not come across that way. New Yankee Workshop and Norm are awesome! I know I was always in awe by how many clamps he had and how he had just about any power tool you could ever want or need in his shop.

As a side note, This Old House Insiders now have seasons 1-5 of New Yankee Workshop available to watch on demand.

Not only for Festool but also as an example for all of us in the woodworking / carpentry / contracting end as an example. When you make a contact - any contact - you never know where it might go in the future. You don't alienate and you are always there. It might not pan out immediately, situations may change, but always be around. Sometimes it isn't always about how much money or effort you throw at it, sometimes it is just time and the aligning of different thoughts.

Years ago, back in the early days of TOH, myself and other contractors would sit around the lunch counter talking about ways to kill Bob on a job site.My guess is some of you may have also run into this.You go look at a job for a homeowner, have a discussion and at some point the homeowner asks how long the job will take. You tell them 1, 2, 3 weeks whatever the deal is.You then notice that husband and wife are looking at each other a bit oddly. At least that's the way you perceive it. After the first few times though you come to realize what that look means.Then the homeowners ask something along the lines of do you work alone, are you only going to be here part time, etc. Again, the first couple times this happens, you wonder what the heck is wrong with these people.Of course you tell them no me and my guys will be here full time, etc.Then comes the question: Well, Bob and his crew get this kind of job done in a day or two. Why is it going to take you so long?At that point, as a contractor I have to decide do I want this job and say something niceOr do I not give a junk because these people are stupid and I have other work lined up. Because as soon as you as the contractor ask, 'Have you never heard of film editing to fit the time slot'; the job is dead since you just politely asked the client if he realizes him and his wife are morons.If someone were going to ask me what's the best and worst thing that has happened for homeowners in the last 20+ years in relation to rehab my answer would be the same. Home shows.As far as Festool and TOH, awesome.Maybe if they get enough sales prices will come down.

Well Tommy has been using their products for years...that is how I learned of the brand.

I watched only a few this old house episodes but a lot of the new Yankee workshop episodes and don't recall seeing any Festool. I really like Norm way to do woodworking and hope this partnership will add to my arsenal of how to

They stopped making new episodes of NYW long ago (show ran from 1989 to 2009). He was doing that show before Festool really existed in the US, (internet says Festool Launched in US in 2000).

The show was from a different era where everything was based around a massive Delta table saw (main sponsor of show), Everything was about dovetail joints, and owning 37 routers. And the exotic tool was the Biscuit jointer.

I watched it all the time and it was a good show. But at the same time it was limited to a particular type of carpentry and tool set. While he would occasionally go off course and say build a boat. It was basic traditional furniture and his shop was what a lot of folks would like to get to, a big building room for a big saw. I think the show largely stopped because they ran out of ideas within that format. You can only make so many colonial drop side tables. I don't think he ever did anything like "Today we will make a Mid Century Chair utilizing a vacuum bagger to form our own bent plywood".

I don't much doubt if it was re-created today, you would probably see a lot of Festool. Lots of home improvement shows have them on screen even when it's pretty clear they aren't paid to be there but are what the people doing the work actually use. Tom Silva is an example of that.

Not a huge surprise. After I became aware of festool (I found them from trying to find metric tools), I would see/notice things with them that I hadn't before. Festool still has the problem no one knows of them. And if you see them on TV, people in general don't know what they are looking at. Tom has probably helped a good bit in making folks aware of some of the stuff. Having an "ad" at the beginning of the show will help people understand what it Festool is. Might go to help people understand what they are looking at. Almost no one knows what a track saw is, and even seeing them on tv, folks are confused or just don't know what is going on. It's not like anything that talks about track saws ever explains track saws (why does nothing ever explain what is holding the track in place).

I've noticed the most recent Mike Holmes tv series have had a lot of Festool in them, some of it looks like built in Ads, but no commercials are shown with them.

Nothing to report here as they have been using Festool products since the early 2000's. It might be more formal, but nothing has changed. I will say what has changed is the piece of junk magazine TOH has morphed into. I had a subscription to it for many years up until 2010 or so when I completed the move to the Journal of Light Construction. The publishers sent me re-up mailings for years and I finally folded this summer at $18 for 3 years thinking there has to be $18 worth of information in it over 3 years. After flipping through the first few pages and reading the note from the editor I knew I had wasted $18. It is but a shadow of itself with touchy feely do-it-yourself articles (how to make a planter, painting tips and tricks, etc). JLC is headed that way too, but I am holding out.

Hey JimH2:I completely agree with you regarding the “demise” of the This Old House magazine.I was an avid subscriber/reader for several years.When it “morphed” from a DIY magazine - To a “decorating” magazine - “Game over”.I discontinued my subscription.BTW...I understand that Tom Silva BUYS his own tools - Including Festool tools.

Years ago, back in the early days of TOH, myself and other contractors would sit around the lunch counter talking about ways to kill Bob on a job site.My guess is some of you may have also run into this.You go look at a job for a homeowner, have a discussion and at some point the homeowner asks how long the job will take. You tell them 1, 2, 3 weeks whatever the deal is.You then notice that husband and wife are looking at each other a bit oddly. At least that's the way you perceive it. After the first few times though you come to realize what that look means.Then the homeowners ask something along the lines of do you work alone, are you only going to be here part time, etc. Again, the first couple times this happens, you wonder what the heck is wrong with these people.Of course you tell them no me and my guys will be here full time, etc.Then comes the question: Well, Bob and his crew get this kind of job done in a day or two. Why is it going to take you so long?At that point, as a contractor I have to decide do I want this job and say something niceOr do I not give a junk because these people are stupid and I have other work lined up. Because as soon as you as the contractor ask, 'Have you never heard of film editing to fit the time slot'; the job is dead since you just politely asked the client if he realizes him and his wife are morons.If someone were going to ask me what's the best and worst thing that has happened for homeowners in the last 20+ years in relation to rehab my answer would be the same. Home shows.As far as Festool and TOH, awesome.Maybe if they get enough sales prices will come down.

Hehehehe so true. Since the DIY network came out and all these people started watching it. They really think some of these jobs can be done in a half hour or hour whatever the show is.

Though Im not a contractor, my wife thinks I take to long to do things, she watches these shows and think they just walk in and everything gets done, she doesnt realize, Im a one man crew, I build things like cabinets and closet organizers etc rather than buy and being alone and sometimes making due wo buying specialized tools etc things take a lot longer.

I do farm things out that I dont like to do, dry wall, exterior painting, and now (grrrrrrr) termite repair rafter tails, and roof repair.

I really like the movie the "Money Pit" HO: How long will it take? contractor: "2 weeks" HO: when can you start?, Contractor When your check clears the bank.

Hehehehe so true. Since the DIY network came out and all these people started watching it. They really think some of these jobs can be done in a half hour or hour whatever the show is.

Though Im not a contractor, my wife thinks I take to long to do things, she watches these shows and think they just walk in and everything gets done, she doesnt realize, Im a one man crew, I build things like cabinets and closet organizers etc rather than buy and being alone and sometimes making due wo buying specialized tools etc things take a lot longer.

I do farm things out that I dont like to do, dry wall, exterior painting, and now (grrrrrrr) termite repair rafter tails, and roof repair.

I do wonder how many people understand this or not. Of course some of the shows like their "crasher" stuff does do it in 3 days. Of course this is due to a production schedule, 1 day setup, 1 day post, 3 days filming. But what is not seen is the weeks of planning before of drawing up prints, engineering, lining up contractor schedules, ordering material, permitting, etc. They do "the job" in the 3 days, if you ignore everything that was done to prep for it. I don't watch these shows much but I've noticed the changed from "I'll come back tomorrow with my crew" to "When we come" and it's much more clear now much time has passed from them being "found" in a store. Still, none of this fixes the ^*() quality of work or &(^# design of it all.

I would love their to be a series of shows that goes back 1-2 years later and sees how any of this holds up or how people have lived with it. Of course they won't do that, and no 3rd party show/network could begin to do it because the people signed NDAs/etc forbidding them from doing that.

Some shows are much better at making clear the timeline and such. I like some of the later Mike Holmes stuff were he would run thru the price breakdowns at the end and give a decent idea of the timeframe it all took.

I think I have a much bigger issue with the non-sense pricing that gets put up on shows that do talk about price and try to claim they are showing their numbers.

This is where TOH, The Victory Garden, were good. Proper shows actually explaining what is happening and not just trying to sell stuff. Though Ask TOH is in many ways a commercial for junk. My biggest issue with TOH is they have generally lost the plot cost wise, and all their stuff is very high end houses. Love to see them start with a 150k house and do it for less than 150k Reno.

On the DIY shows, I do really hope not many people thinking you can re-do an entire kitchen in a weekend. But I'm sure their are many that try. This is where the "renovation realities" show was interesting. Film actual people who have watched way to much of the network they will be on and believe they can do a fully gut and redesign of a kitchen/bay/house in 5 days and do it for 2300 dollars. You get to see people who fell for this idea try it an fail, they always fail. I wonder if they ended the show because it made the rest of the network look bad. That or people really started asking ethical questions about permits/safety/when for film crew to intervene.

This is where TOH, The Victory Garden, were good. Proper shows actually explaining what is happening and not just trying to sell stuff. Though Ask TOH is in many ways a commercial for junk. My biggest issue with TOH is they have generally lost the plot cost wise, and all their stuff is very high end houses. Love to see them start with a 150k house and do it for less than 150k Reno.

That's my problem with TOH now. They do have great contractors; but they're doing things on a budget that is totally un-relatable.

Well Tommy has been using their products for years...that is how I learned of the brand.

I watched only a few this old house episodes but a lot of the new Yankee workshop episodes and don't recall seeing any Festool. I really like Norm way to do woodworking and hope this partnership will add to my arsenal of how to

They stopped making new episodes of NYW long ago (show ran from 1989 to 2009). He was doing that show before Festool really existed in the US, (internet says Festool Launched in US in 2000).

The show was from a different era where everything was based around a massive Delta table saw (main sponsor of show), Everything was about dovetail joints, and owning 37 routers. And the exotic tool was the Biscuit jointer.

I watched it all the time and it was a good show. But at the same time it was limited to a particular type of carpentry and tool set. While he would occasionally go off course and say build a boat. It was basic traditional furniture and his shop was what a lot of folks would like to get to, a big building room for a big saw. I think the show largely stopped because they ran out of ideas within that format. You can only make so many colonial drop side tables. I don't think he ever did anything like "Today we will make a Mid Century Chair utilizing a vacuum bagger to form our own bent plywood".

I don't much doubt if it was re-created today, you would probably see a lot of Festool. Lots of home improvement shows have them on screen even when it's pretty clear they aren't paid to be there but are what the people doing the work actually use. Tom Silva is an example of that.

NYW & TOH are two entirely different platforms.

I think FT does a fine job of bringing stationary grade tools to the job site and to the space confined woodworker, thus I think that a partnership with TOH fits nicely. If I had the dedicated space and were building furniture as Norm does on NYW, I would choose stationary tools hands down.

In fairness, I do think that FT has made some fine crossover tools that can be used in both applications.

I don't disagree that a large saw in a big space would be nice, but I also think if you start getting there, some alternative setups also work too. I think some folks would love to have big tables set up with really long 1 piece rails and their tracksaws plugged into overhead power and dust extractor. No matter how much space you have, moving the saw and not the material has plenty of benefits.

Given space and some money, just buying a CNC router table that can handle 4x8 sheets of material starts making the most sense, replace a lot of tools with 1.

Thats awesome that they are going to be there. But honestly for me, I dont get all into these celebrities like the TOH group. Sure they WERE contractors and know their stuff. I know a lot I mean alot of other contractors who get up in the morning and go to a job site everyday and do just as good work as the TOH and other shows crews do. In some place better bc if these guys screw up there isnt a redo or editing.

But it will be fun seeing them live. Hopefully they are approachable and I can get to talk to them. Im not one to wait in long lines to google at them get photos etc.

There was a show I seen when I was in the UK a Canadian remodeler I think its called Custom Built or something to that affect. That guy came up with some really nice ideas. I dont think the show will air in the states as some of his work methods wouldnt fly in the states like free handing wood through a table saw no blade guard, miter saw with no blade guard etc. But his prjects were beautiful.